Loud is the World
by Fairies Masquerade
Summary: "How could he love something so innately broken? No wonder demons flourished here. They had it easy." - TWD/Supernatural crossover for the USS Caryl's 'Mish-Mash' challenge.
1. The Roadhouse

_**A/N:** Hi. So, I'm expermenting again. Everyone feel free to blame The Readers Muse for this. It was her idea. This is a crossover between TWD &amp; Supernatural, my submission to the USS Caryl's "Mish-Mash" challenge. I don't anticipate this being more than 3-4 chapters, tops._

_I should point out, this starts near the start of the 'Supernatural' series and will progress along as chapters go on._

_The opinions portrayed of all matters regarding God and religion in general are entirely my own. If you want to have a discourse on these matters with me, feel free to find me on tumblr or PM me here._

_My sincerest thanks to Muse for all of her encouragement and to Noxid Anamchara for her critique and fact-checking SPN knowledge with me._

* * *

For all the noise his brothers and sisters made, the fighting and the rage between them, Heaven had been fairly quiet. It was really the only thing he missed. Here, perched at the dingy bar in the crowded, smoky haze of Harvelle's Roadhouse, it had never seemed farther away.

This is what he'd left for, given up his place in Heaven to come _here_, full of a yearning to understand these creatures his Father had made and a desire to escape the growing chaos that churned above. _'As you love me, love them more.'_ That was their commandment, passed down through the ranks, archangel to seraphim to cherubim, and once the great war was done and the dust settled, he'd simply accepted it and moved on. Guarding the path to Purgatory was no small feat, but as time marched on he found himself thinking more and more about why Father would ask _this_ of them. The few times he'd tried to bring it up with his brothers, he'd been derided, _mocked_, for daring to question an order. So he'd shut his mouth and kept his thoughts to himself until the idea, the passion for knowledge, consumed him. He'd left, slipping away quietly into the shadows without a word to anyone in his garrison and made his way here.

That no one had come after him was exhilarating and disheartening all at once.

He'd cloaked himself as best he could and set out to explore this great creation. He'd experienced the quiet grace of the sun rising in the morning, the clear call of birds in the trees and the cool, crisp rush of a flowing river. He'd learned that he liked to ride a motorcycle, the closest he could get to actually flying, and that even though he didn't need to eat or drink, he enjoyed the sweetly bitter taste of coffee. He'd seen the mark of Satan's hand all over this world, demons and monsters that he couldn't imagine God ever intended to exist, wreaking havoc on misguided souls. Most of all, he'd realized that human beings were selfish and self-destructive, flawed and violent. The decade he'd spent wandering the earth had given him little understanding of why he was supposed to love these _things_. How could he love something so innately _broken_?

No wonder demons flourished here. They had it _easy_.

He'd realized he'd made a mistake that was unfixable. He could never go home. He was stuck here, amongst these lost creatures.

So by day, he rode his motorcycle, streaking down long stretches of black pavement as far as the eye could see. At night, he drank. And he drank. And he drank, and with each sip of acrid booze that slipped past his lips, he felt himself becoming as lost as the mortals around him.

Tonight was no different. Sitting at the grimy bar with bad 70's country music caterwauling away in the background and nursing his second beer of the night as he listened to the chatter around him. Hunters, every one down to the last man, gathered within these walls to plan, reminisce, mourn and celebrate in one glorious hodgepodge of liquor and bad music from the clunky jukebox in the corner. Every night the ritual was repeated and every night, as he had for the past year, he sat at the bar and watched. Nobody bothered him here. With his knife and crossbow, his weathered leather jacket and the sour air that permeated from him, they simply assumed he was one of them.

"Fuckin' morons," he muttered into his glass.

"Me or somebody else?"

He jerked his head to see a woman had taken the empty stool next to him. A tiny, slender thing with a head of short cropped silver hair and eyes the clear light blue of a robin's egg.

"'M sorry," he said. "Didn't realize there was anybody close enough to hear me."

"It's all right." She carried with her the aura of grief and weariness that all hunters had, thick like a blanket wrapped around their shoulders, except hers didn't fit her right. It was too… fresh. Her shoulders hadn't bowed under the weight of it yet. _Damn. She's new._

"Buy you a drink?" He surprised himself with the offer that tumbled from his lips. He rarely spoke to anyone during his nightly sojourns to this podunk little bar unless he was ordering another beer, and asking anyone to join him in his melancholy had never happened. Yet here he was, offering to buy a woman he'd known all of five seconds a drink, with all the subtext that went along with doing so. The lady in question was eyeing him with a delicately arched eyebrow.

"OK."

He supposed stranger things had happened. He just couldn't remember any at the moment. A raised finger had a stein of beer appear in front of her almost like magic, with a fresh glass for him at it's side. They both sipped at the amber liquid, the silence between them as awkward as a whore in church.

A burst of laughter from the far side of the room, sharp and flat with it's jaded irony, pulled their attention. They watched the drunken hunters boast and brag over the pool table with forced bravado. Farther in the shadows a cluster of men gathered around a round table covered in charts and maps. A somber trio, two men and a woman, perched at the other end of the bar, the woman dissolved in tears on the older man's shoulder while the younger drove his knife into the scarred bartop over and over again. In between all of them flitted the blonde curls of the younger Harvelle, busing tables and refilling drinks where she could.

"Is it always like this?" His companion said softly. "So…"

_Grim? Gruesome? Depressing? Lonely?_

"Yes."

She shuddered and pulled her cardigan, made from some loose knit knobbly fabric, tighter around her shoulders. She seemed fragile to him, too delicate for this place.

"You won't last a week," he said shortly. "Should give it up, go home." To his great surprise, she laughed into her beer, turning back to him with a sad smile.

"You think I'm a hunter?"

_Well, when she put it **that** way..._

"No," he said. _Definitely not._ She was still chuckling, taking a long swallow of ale and daintily wiping her mouth before she answered him.

"I'm not a hunter. I'm just a friend of Ellen's."

"I see." That was smart of her. Too many people tried to hunt, filled with the burning righteousness of revenge-fueled fire, and were lost almost instantly. _Fools. All of them. _But she still had that look of one who'd lost someone, maybe multiple someones, to something dark. "Why not?"

She sighed and bit her lip. He could almost hear the wheels turning in her head as she thought.

"My mother, she taught me that everything happens for a reason. That there was a divine power… God… directing all of us along our own paths. That if we had faith in Him and recognized His hand in all things, we'd end up right where we were supposed to."

_God. If she only knew. _He almost wanted to laugh at her.

"You really believe that?"

"No." She took a long swallow of her beer, her fingertips idly tracing patterns in the rivers of condensation on the glass. "After my daughter…"

_Oh._ His stomach clenched at the thought. _What do you call someone who's lost a child?_ It took him a long moment to realize she was still speaking.

"I realized that everything just… _happens_. Everything happens. _Everything_ happens, and anyone who says otherwise is selling something."

"So you don't believe in God?"

"No, I do."

"Ah, so you're one of _those_." He tried to wash down the bitterness inside of him with a swig of his beer. "Believin' there has to be somethin' good to balance out all the evil?"

She turned and gave him a long look, her eyes taking him in from the soles of his scuffed boots to the tip of his head, covered in long hanks of hair that hadn't seen a good wash in days. He wondered what she thought of him.

"It's about balance, but it's more than that. I believe… I believe that to have faith in God is to have faith in _ourselves_. God doesn't want to control us. He wants us to _live_. That to recognize that everything we're capable of... the good, the bad and everything in between… to look at ourselves and _choose_ how we react to life, who we want to be and what we do here…" She laughed, her cheeks glowing pink in the faint light. "I'm not making any sense."

He can see it. For one brilliant, dizzying moment, he can see it and marvel in the simplicity of the idea. In all the millennia he could remember, he'd only ever made one decision on his own. It was one he regretted, yes, but it was still _his_. Just as she had clearly chosen _not_ to take up hunting to avenge the loss of her daughter, but had instead decided to _live_, in her memory.

_It's all a matter of choice._

"Yeah, you are."

Her eyes flick up to his and he's startled again at how clear and bright her eyes are. He'd read once an overly romanticised idea that eyes were window's to the soul. For the first time, he thinks he might understand what it means.

"Carol!"

They both turn at the call, seeing Ellen waving at her from the back door.

"That's me." His companion, _Carol_, rises to her feet, graceful despite the slight tremor in her hands and the blush that still tints her face. "Thank you for the drink…?"

He realized she was hoping he'd give her his name. He decided to give her the only one he really could.

"Daryl."


	2. Ellen

_**A/N:** This is a much shorter chapter than I had originally intended. Mostly because I lost what I had written previously in what I'm calling the Great MacBook Crash of 2014. So, sorry folks. But at least here is something so I can move on with this one._

* * *

Daryl lit a cigarette, enjoy the fleeting tingle of the nicotine hitting his system as he leaned against the Triumph. _His_ Triumph, he supposed. It had certainly been long enough. The roadhouse was full to bursting, the sounds of music, hoots and hollers tumbling out the cracked windows and the half open door. From the sound of things, he figured there was a celebration happening inside; a hunt gone well. _That's somethin'_. Normally at this point he'd have gone inside, settled at his usual place at the bar and ordered his usual beer. Tonight felt... different. There was something in the air he couldn't name, something that had been haunting him all day. The shimmer of a feeling, just enough to set him on edge. So he sat outside, resisting the urge to go in and fumbling with the tarnished catch of his lighter.

"Daryl."

He sighed as Ellen Harvelle strode towards him with a determined look on her face. He liked Ellen well enough. She was steely eyed in her determination to give her daughter a home and stay strong in this world. She had a keen eye and a good habit of keeping her ear to the ground. It was something he could appreciate.

For all Ellen's savvy, he wondered if she had any idea he wasn't human.

He knew what she saw: the human shell he wore, with it's long hair and lined face, draped in worn cloth and smooth leather. Hunters traveled in the world of myths and legends, whispers and rumors and here he stood, a mystery among mysteries. He knew Ellen would serve him a drink every night without question. That didn't mean she trusted him.

"So I hear my friend got our solemn loner to talk," Ellen said with a smirk. _Oh._ It made his insides squirm.

If he was being honest with himself, it wasn't just tonight that felt different. All day he'd been thinking about the striking woman from last night, with her frail physique and her endearing insights on life. _Carol._ He didn't understand why he couldn't just banish her from his thoughts.

"Carol's different," Ellen said shortly. He smirked and took a quick drag off his neglected cigarette.

"Yeah, I got that last night."

"_No._ You don't. So _listen up_."

Daryl blinked, startled at the hint of aggression he picked up in Ellen's voice.

"'M listenin'."

"Carol is my friend," Ellen said as she folded her arms over her chest. "Been my friend since we were girls. She's a good soul."

The phrase gave him pause. _A good soul._ He'd been on this world a long time and he knew the truth, that true good souls were rare among these strange creatures. He'd seen too many people to count pretend, perform acts of kindness and charity but always with a selfish twist at their core, trying to put forward goodness only to impress others.

"What happened to her?"

"Same thing that happened to the rest of us," Ellen said with a shrug. "A demon. Her little girl started actin' funny and strange things started happenin' around the house. By the time I heard what was goin' on it was too late. Showed up at Carol's house and Sophia was just… gone and there was this thing wearin' her skin. We tried an exorcism, but…"

"_But_," Daryl murmured. He threw down the stub of his cigarette and ground it into the dirt with the toe of his boot. "How old was she?"

"Twelve."

"Bastards." The curse slipped from his lips before he could think. _It shouldn't have happened_. Demons were an aberration, something that should never have existed in the first place. They crawled over this world like locusts, devouring everything good and decent in their path, and they'd been created by his brother. He burned with the shame of it, ducking his head and tangling his fingers in the long hank of hair at the back of his neck.

_It's all a matter of choice._

Choice was dangerous. That much had been drilled into him for a long as he could remember. It brought confusion where there had been order and discipline. He'd seen it firsthand and he knew what choice could do. Lucifer had started the war with his choices and look at everything that had happened since. Look at humanity, with all the free agency they'd been granted. How they had mistreated that freedom. Even _God_, with all his might and power, had chosen poorly with his creation of the Leviathans. And yet...

The power to choose was the power to _change everything_.

Daryl felt his nerves tingle with with the same frisson he'd felt in the air all day and night, that sense of _something_, and suddenly it had a name.

It felt like _anticipation._

"It's just been six weeks," Ellen said._ Shit, Ellen._ He'd actually forgotten she was there for a moment. She was scrutinizing him with narrowed eyes. He heard her message loud and clear in the way she stood, by the gleam in her eye and the clench of her jaw. _Hurt my friend and see what happens to you._

"It was just a conversation," Daryl drawled slowly. _Of course it was._ He blinked and flinched at the smirk that broke out without warning on Ellen's face.

"We'll see." She spun on her heel and strolled back to the bar without a second glance at him.

He needed another cigarette.


	3. Numbers

_**A/N:** It's not long, but it's a little somethin' somethin' to get me back in the groove on this one. Thanks for sticking with me._

* * *

Every time he got the bike onto the open road, really _out_ there with nothing ahead of him but miles of concrete and no cars in sight and the roar of the big engine in his ears, it reminded him of flying. It wasn't the quite same feeling of using his wings, feeling the strength and power as he flew, but it was close. It was enough. It had to be. If he used his wings… if he did _anything_…

They'd find him.

He couldn't let them find him.

So he ran, letting the wind guide him to places filled with faces that blurred together until he couldn't distinguish anything or anyone new. Never staying anywhere long and never visiting the same place twice, except for the roadhouse. The only place with faces he recognized, even though he rarely spoke. He could tick off the people he conversed with there on one hand. Ellen… her daughter Jo, but only when he wanted a refill… Carol.

_Carol._

They'd spent his last night at the roadhouse in near silence, both of them nursing tall glasses of beer and sneaking glances at each other like bashful teenagers. A comment here and there about the most inconsequential of things as they people-watched in the heady mix of booze-fueled emotions of the bar. To his great surprise, the silence had felt anything but uncomfortable. If anything, it felt… natural. Easy. _Safe._

He had no idea what it was about this woman, but she'd gotten into his head and wouldn't leave. In the two months since he'd last seen Carol, she'd been dancing around the edge of his thoughts, always _there_. Haunting him.

_"__I'm going home tomorrow."_

_He grunted into his beer and arched an eyebrow at her._

_"__Where's home?"_

_"__Senoia, Georgia."_

There was an overlook ahead, a place to stop and observe the churning waters of the Mississippi. Daryl guided his motorcycle to the side of the road and parked, stretching his arms over his head as he made his way to the rail and stared out at the river. He let the wind whip through his hair for a while, letting his muscles relax and enjoy the brief respite from powering the bike.

He tried desperately to ignore the payphone, just a few yards away near the edge of the road.

His fingers drifted to his pocket, pulling out the piece of paper that had been burning against his hip for weeks. A tiny scrap of paper, something that should have been of no consequence but felt heavier in his hand than a thousand stones. The paper was worn thin now, the scrawl of numbers in blue ink faded to almost nothing from the constant rub of his fingers. Ellen had shoved this into his hand with a stern look before he'd left the roadhouse, a finger to her lips to stress the importance of silence. He didn't really need the paper at this point. He'd memorized the sequence of digits weeks ago.

Carol's phone number.

The very idea was ridiculous. He didn't have friends. Didn't _need_ friends. Couldn't _risk_ friends. The fact that he wanted to see her again was dangerous enough. He was meant to be alone. It was better this way.

_'__God doesn't want to control us. He wants us to __**live**__. That to recognize that everything we're capable of... the good, the bad and everything in between… to look at ourselves and choose how we react to life, who we want to be and what we do here…'_

"And who we choose to be with," Daryl muttered to the wind.

He guessed he'd made another choice after all. The constant tension in his shoulders seemed a shade lighter at the thought. He was at the phone almost before he could blink, jamming quarters into the slot and punching at the sticky keypad with trembling fingers.

One ring… two…

_It's all a matter of choice._

Three rings… four…

"Hello?"

He sighed and leaned his forehead against the weathered, grimy phone box.

"... It's Daryl."

There was a long pause. He could just make out her catch of breath on the other end. _Surprised her._

"... This ok?"

"Yeah," she breathed slowly. Another deep breath and long exhale, then: "It's ok. … Hi."

He was smiling.

"Hi."

It was a start, anyway.


	4. Things We Know

_**A/N: **Long overdue. Still a work in progress, just slow going. Hoping to wrap this one up in a couple of chapters. Thank you for reading!_

_Muse, this is for you._

* * *

**Chapter 4: Things We Know**

It was a little house, all faded white wooden slats and a roof with too many shingles missing. The grass was tall, almost to Daryl's knees, full of weeds and yellowed from neglect. The chain link fence that circled the tiny property was lopsided and covered in rust.

_This was a dumbass idea._

He'd spoken to Carol on the phone maybe half a dozen times over the past month, but he'd never intended to actually visit. Hell, he'd never even mentioned coming down to Senoia, let alone Georgia. Somehow, despite his best intentions, he'd found himself in Atlanta but before he could blink he'd found trouble with a nest of demons and had very nearly blown his cover in the ensuing fight. He made it a point to be well outside of town before the smoke had cleared.

Daryl needed to lay low, to _hide_, just for a little while. _Like any human would._

This was _nuts_. He was putting Carol in danger just by being in the same _state_ and now he had the balls to show up, unannounced and with a horde of demons on his trail. _Fuckin' genius…_ Daryl kicked at the fence, the rusted metal giving a loud squeal of protest before he turned his back on the little house. He made it to his bike and was just settling into the seat when he heard it. Gentle, soft and nearly timid in its disbelief.

"Daryl?"

She must have heard him. She was standing in the doorway, surprise written all over her face… but it didn't seem like he was an _unwelcome_ surprise. Her hair had grown longer since he'd last seen her and was a curly silver cloud that framed her face. His imagination hadn't done her justice; he'd gotten the blue of her eyes a shade too light. He hadn't remembered the sweep of her collarbones along the low neck of her shirt or the curve of her waist.

She was lovely, lovelier than he'd remembered. _You stay here and you'll ruin her._

He hadn't even registered she'd come all the way down to the battered fence, her long fingers winding themselves between the rusted chain link.

"You need a place to hide," she said solemnly. _Way to be obvious, dumbass._

"I shoulda called first," he mumbled.

"It's all right," Carol said with a shake of her head, giving him the barest hint of a smile. "I don't have a garage, but there's a shed, there…" She pointed to the far side of the yellow grass. He could just make out a dilapidated tool shed. A worn, tattered tarp barely covered a pile of old wood. "You can at least hide the bike there. Come on in."

She was scared, he could tell, but still determined to put him at ease, to help however she could. Ellen's voice echoed in his head. _She's a good soul. You shouldn't stay here._

Carol slid open the gate with a loud, rusted squeal. He supposed he didn't have much choice but to go in, after all.

* * *

The house was neater on the inside that the outside. Old fashioned and outdated, he could tell instantly she hadn't chosen any of the decor in the place for herself. These were cheap flea market purchases, the hand-me-downs of someone else's were clean, though. He didn't see a speck of dust in the whole place. The wallpaper was faded except for several random-sized square patches scattered along the walls. _She's taken down all the pictures._

It was as haunted a house as he'd ever seen; ghosts around every corner. If an actual spectre appeared right now, he wouldn't be surprised in the least.

She'd offered him food and drink, both of which he'd turned down as politely as he could. The guest room was plain: a bed with a simple blue coverlet and a dresser of pale wood. His leather satchel seemed out of place, thrown on the end of the bed.

It was a lonely room inside an even lonelier house.

_She shouldn't be alone like this._

"Are you sure you don't need anything?" Carol was leaning against the door jamb, looking in at the room with a nervous expression. "I know it's not much-"

"Yeah, 'm all right," Daryl interrupted gently. "Don' need much, anyway. You salt 'round the windows?"

She nodded. "The doors, too. There's plenty of food stored in the basement. I've been canning a lot since… well, recently… anyway. We should be able to hold out for a good long while, in any case."

He'd brought danger to her door and she was trying to make sure he felt comfortable. _Safe._ She was totally against the relative norm of his dealings with humans.

"How long do you think it'll be?" Carol asked.

"Can't say," Daryl shrugged. He has his ears on, the inner senses that warned of dark forces nearby. He'd been stupid in Atlanta,_ negligent_ for the first time in_ ages_ and look at all that had gone wrong as a result. They were close. He could _feel_ them, black and raw against his senses as they combed along the highway nearby. Looking for _him_.

"Listen, mebe I should go-"

"No." The steely glint of determination in her voice gave him pause. It was fierce, that hint of anger and rage in that single syllable.

"It ain't safe-"

"Nowhere is safe from _them_," Carol said. "They're everywhere. You're a hunter. You _know_ that. All we can do is… what we do. Here is as safe as anywhere else, and you know_ that_, too."

He knew.

He also knew that if anything happened to her because of him, he'd carry the weight and stain of her blood on his hands for the rest of eternity.

It didn't matter. They were too close. He couldn't leave now without being spotted.

* * *

The demons reached the house just after nightfall.

Carol hadn't questioned him when he told her to cover the windows just before sunset, the sense of danger, of _evil_, so close the air around him crackled with it. There were a hundred things he could have done to give this house protection: sigils, signs, a dozen different spells that would have worked. His wings thrummed in their hiding place; his form longing to burst free, banish the monsters and bring peace to this house and the tender woman inside.

And yet he kept them cloaked, as he had for too many years. He could banish the demons in an instant, yes, and bring something even worse upon this house than Crowley's dim-witted minions. So they barricaded the windows with the storm coverings, thick planks of wood that slotted over the glass and blocked out the last vestiges of sunlight. He checked the salt lines at every possible entrance to the house while Carol had tried to eat a quick bowl of soup. It sat on the kitchen counter now, half full and cold to the touch.

They were in the living room, both of them sitting on the floor, legs crossed and a deck of cards, still in their shrink wrap, at Daryl's knee while a single candle flickered between them when the first scratches started along the outside walls. He wasn't sure how it sounded to Carol, but to him it was as loud and awful as nails on a chalkboard.

_Scriiiiiiitch. Scritch scratch._

Carol shuddered at the noise and ducked her head. He felt worse than an asshole, worse than even those things outside for putting her through this._ Again._

" 'm so sorry," Daryl whispered. When Carol raised her head, he saw how pale she was but her eyes were warm and the set of her mouth firm as she smiled grimly at him.

"Don't be," she whispered back. "I'm glad you're here."

"Ya jokin with me?"

"Not at all." She reached out and gently, cautiously, tucked a single slender finger around his thumb. "Where else could you have gone?"

He had nowhere else. They both knew it. There was silence for a long minute as things thumped and hissed along the porch outside, trying to seek him out. They didn't know he was here yet. If he and Carol could just stay quiet, they might have a chance...

"It's all right," Carol said softly. "I'm glad I can help. What are friends for?"

_Friends._ That word again… but he supposed they were, after all. That first phone call from the side of the road had made sure of that. He let his thumb stroke the soft skin of her finger. Despite everything, he felt a pleasant warmth in his belly.

He wasn't alone anymore.


End file.
